Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Big Beverly Park Sell Off

Last week, Your Mama discussed some of the priciest properties currently available in some of the glitzier zip codes of Los Angeles. Although none of $50,000,000+ estates on that list are located in the disturbingly dee-luxe Beverly Park community, the gated enclave is none the less a vortex of hotel sized houses with steroidal price tags.

Stretching across 250 acres high above the city of Beverly Hills, Beverly Park is divided into two sections with three gated entrances. Beverly Park South has a single entrance off Summitridge Drive and consists of 16 homes while Beverly Park North has entrances off Summitridge Drive and Mulholland Drive. Beverly Park North was sectioned into 64 parcels by the developers, however several super rich residents purchased mulitple parcels bringing the number of homesites to 56. Several properties are currently in various stages of construction and, as best as we can tell, two parcels remain undeveloped, one of which is owned by Beverly Park resident Robert Bisno and is for sale with an asking price of $11,900,000.

Whether loved or loathed, everyone in the Los Angeles real estate game seems to have a strong opinion about Beverly Park's near mythic mega-mansion lined streets. Mumbling Mandy says, "I think that Beverly Park is great in that it keeps comps and prices at a good standpoint for the high end market. The reason that many stars live there is because its very exclusive, has a no fly zone, and everyone in the community is of the same caliber." Another well connected contact whom we affectionately call Nelly Knowsitall says, "Beverly Park has always been about foreign money and new money. Lots of it." Kenny Kissintell, one of Your Mama's gal-pals who owns a jealousy inducing address in Beverly Hills and is rich enough to live in Beverly Park if he wanted, recently hissed in our big ol' ear, "It's soooo gross up there you can't believe it. That place is for the likes of athletes, assholes and Dr. Phil types...bad taste in every direction."

One can imagine this super swank and heavily secured community might be very attractive to the rich, the famous and the so rich you don't even know their names. And it is. Current residents of Beverly Park include showbiz folks like Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Rod Stewart and Reba McEntire and entertainment tycoons like Sumner Redstone, AviArad and HaimSaban. Then there are the big bizness barons like tool tycoon Eric Smidt and pizza mogul Larry Flax who founded the California Pizza Kitchen. Toss in a few more famous people, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and a couple members of the Saudi royal family and you've got an old fashioned Beverly Park backyard barbecue...as if that ever happens.

Other than a burning desire to live in a domicile five or 10 times the size of the average American home and the smug satisfaction and strange comfort of knowing all of your neighbors are (theoretically) as filthy rich as you, security is a primary reason many people who possess piles of cash money and millions in art and jewelry gravitate to Beverly Park. Not only is the community gated and guarded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but each tumescent Tuscan pile and every faux French chateau sits behind electronically controlled gates of their own and are equipped with state of the art security. Some residents even hire their own security personnel to roam the grounds, man the gate and protect their possessions. For many, that would be enough, plenty even, but not for the ridiculously rich residents of one of the U-nited States' more immoderate and pretentious private communities. Residents of Beverly Park also pay out of pocket for additional armed security to comb the unusually quiet and usually desolate streets where a human being (who is not the gardener) is rarely seen but through the dark tinted window of a luxury automobile.

A few of the swank Beverly Park spreads are usually on the open market at any given time, and occasionally one of them actually sells. The most recent transaction on record was in September of 2008 when super successful building contractor Ron Tutor forked over a staggering $32,200,000 for a yet to be completed monster-manse which according to listing information was designed to measure a whopping 27,000 square feet (approx.) with 9 bedrooms and an astounding 18 bathrooms.

All of the sudden, perhaps due to the economic tsunami and the near instantaneous evaporation of wealth that has occurred as a result of the stock market melt down or perhaps just by coincidence, an unusual and surprising number of Beverly Park properties have popped up on the market. We thought it might be interesting to give a quick run down and a cold hard look at the available properties just in case there's a billionaire or two reading our little online endeavor who is still in the market for a humongous house that costs more to maintain each and every month than most Americans make in a single year.

The least expensive property currently available is located in Beverly Park South, which some snooty types with a flair for the flashy will say is less desirable than the Beverly Park North section where all the truly tremendous houses are located. The approximately 4-acre estate belongs to country music queen Faith Hill and her country music king huzband Tim McGraw. The countrypolitan couple listed their approximately 10,500 square foot Mediterranean style pile in October of 2008 with an asking price of $14,800,000. They have not lowered the price. The 6 bedroom and 7.5 bathroom sprawler includes a double height entrance hall, large entertainment spaces and a master suite with dual bathrooms, one of which includes black tile accents and is open to a large gym and looks to Your Mama like a gay bathhouse circa 1982. Sorry Mister McGraw, but it does.

In February of 2007, the house was burglarized, a situation that surely disturbed the other residents of the supposedly secured community. According to reports at the time, the intruder entered the house through a broken window. Authorities did not elaborate on what items were stolen except to say that an unspecified amount of money was missing. What Your Mama wants to know is why wasn't the damn burglar alarm clanging and screaming the very moment the nervy thief breathed on the window pane?

Also located in Beverly Park South is the home of aged Italian siren Luciana Paluzzi and her media mogul/theme park executive huzband Michael Solomon who originally listed their 13,638 square foot house in July of 2008 for $19,995,000, a figure that quickly and inexplicably jumped up to $23,995,000. According to the always informative Babbling Babette, British pop star Robbie Williams entered into a contract to purchase the house in the late summer for close to the asking price but backed out at the last minute, lost his sizable deposit and decided to move back to England. Shortly after that aborted transaction, the asking price was lowered to its current number of $19,995,000.

As best as we can tell from listing information, the the main house includes 3 bedrooms including a master with dual bathrooms, natch, 3 additional bedrooms in the 2-story guest house and another separate room and bath for a live in staff person. The back yard offers panoramic views down the canyon towards Beverly Hills proper and includes a large pool and spa as well as a sunken, not quite north/south tennis court for the sporty types. For what it's worth and as far as were are concerned–and of course, our opinion is utterly meaningless–the Paluzzi pad could benefit greatly from a nice gay decorator doing over the dated day-core which will cost the new owner another couple million in couches, cabinetry and commodes.

Next on the list, and rare for Beverly Park, is a unabashedly contemporary crib owned by porn purveyor Norm Zada which just appeared on the open market this week with an asking price of $24,500,000.

Although Mister Zada earned a doctorate from UC Berkeley, worked as an adjunct professor of mathematics at institutions of higher learning like Stanford and Columbia, became a champion poker player and a money manager, he chose to make his big bucks and major mark on the world with a seriously smutty magazine called Perfect 10 in which women who have not had any cosmetic surgery are pictured baring their naughty bits and nether parts in all their extremely explicit glory.

According to listing information, the 6.79 acre estate includes an approximately 15,000 square foot main house plus an approximately 5,000 square foot guest house connected to the main house by a glass and steel bridge. Altogether the property includes 11 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms as well as dance and art studios, a gym, office, library and all the other rooms expected in a house the size of a small airport. Exterior amenities include parking for a bevy of Mister Zada's "natural" beauties, a paddle ball court with pavilion, vast stretches of flat lawn perfect for a rousing game of strip croquet and a swimming pool and spa not nearly as orgy-sized as one might expect from the home of a proud pornographer.

Just down the street and around the bend from Mister Zada's colossal contemporary is the home of controversial and much maligned property developer Robert Bisno and his wifey Jeanette who hoisted their 5+ acre estate onto the open market in late November of 2008 with an asking price of $29,500,000. Since then the asking price has been sliced and diced down to its current number of $25,900,000. Listing information shows the approximately 16,800 square foot behemoth includes 5 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms as well as a media room, piano room, an office, and a brick-lined wine cellar with its own living and dining areas.

The grounds include an exuberantly and meticulously manicured rose garden, walking paths throughout the property, a swimming pool, sunken tennis court and a backyard cabana with another living room, a bar and a terlit so that wet guests need not traipse through the main house dripping chlorinated water which could ruin the Aubussons.

Some real estate scuttlebutters say Mister Bisno has been forced to sell his big house out of financial distress, and indeed at one point not so long ago a Notice of Default had been filed and at least one auction date was staved off. However, Your Mama don't know nuthin' from nuthin' about Mister Bisno's bank accounts so we do not need to hear from his people about how he's still swimming in dough. Maybe he is, maybe he ain't. All we know for sure is that for whatever reasons, Mister Bisno wants to sell his damn house.

The next property belongs to Rockstar Energy Drink founder Russ Weiner who listed his 5+ acre Beverly Park real estate baby just this week with a breathtaking asking price of $28,000,000. While that number does not sound so large when you consider the asking price of many of the other properties currently for sale in Beverly Park, we ask y'all to consider that prop records reveal Mister Weiner only purchased his 8,448 square foot mansion in February of 2007 for $15,000,000. We're not sure if Mister Weiner made any significant (or even any insignificant) improvements to the 6 bedroom and 7 bathroom Spanish hacienda style house. But for that ginormous price increase, he better have gilded the place in gold because let's be honest, what kind of damn fool would pay nearly double what Mister Weiner paid just two years ago in an economy sinking faster than the Titanic? Seriously, who?

Mister Weiner owns a number of properties all over Los Angeles and has spent the better part of the last few years trying to unload them. He's got a four floor butt-buster of a house on Franklin Avenue that's been listed since the dawn of time. That house, now listed at $2,500,000 was first listed in January of 2007 for $3,995,000. Another property he wishes was not sitting in his real estate portfolio is a cockamamie house on Sierra Alta Way with 9 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms that's currently listed at $14,900,000 but was previously listed as insanely high as $22,000,000. Mister Weiner recently managed to lighten his real estate load when he sold the famed and somewhat infamous house known as The Fortress up on Sunset Plaza Drive in late 2008 for $8,000,000. This was after two long years on the market with an asking price that started at a decidedly optimistic $14,995,000.

Next on the list is a 27,000 square foot spec built maximalist manor house currently listed at a blistering $31,500,000 which is a lot of damn money even for the crazy rich. However, it's a far cry from the $49,000,000 the developer first listed the palatial 10 bedroom and 14 bathroom mansard roofed mega-mansion that our sidekick Joodee craves to tool around in while wearing a hoop skirt, powdered wig and silver slingback sandals pretending to be the Duchess of Beverly Park.

The three stories of unrestrained opulence include monumental entertainment spaces including an honest to God ballroom, a poshly paneled, circular library with a glass floor that looks down into a 2,500 bottle brick-lined wine cellar, a huge home theater, a marble spa in the basement that includes wet and dry massage rooms, a gigantic gym with mirrored walls, a hot tub and an indoor pool for all those chilly southern California winters. The grounds include a swimming pool, deep loggias for lazy afternoons lounging in the shade and the necessary permits for a tennis court. The necessary permits? Thirty one million bucks and you get permits for a tennis court? Pleeze. For that amount of money we don't only want a tennis court, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter want a deeded to the property and scantily clad tennis pro available at day and night at a moment's notice.

Although it does not appear on the MLS, an estate known as The Great 78 still appears on the listing agent's personal website with an asking price of $34,000,000. At one point Your Mama erroneously thought this real estate white elephant was owned by beer baron Adolf Coors, but as it turns out, it's actually owned by former body builder and nutritional supplement magnate Bill Phillips. The near three acre estate, which has been for sale for about as long as Your Mama has been alive, boasts a 17,826 square foot vaguely Moorish style mansion with a large motor court, lots of palm trees, 9 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms.

Several other Beverly Park properties were recently for available for purchase but did not sell and no longer appear to be listed on the open market. Those properties include Indonesian biznessman Han Moeljadi's 10 bedroom and 14 bathroom architectural extravaganza which had been listed at $29,000,000 since before we started our little online endeavor back in late 2006. The listing has disappeared from the MLS, but we do not find any transfer records for the property.

In August of 2007 super producer Mike Medavoy (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Rocky Terminator and etc.) and his wifey Irina put their modest by Beverly Park standards mansion on the market with an asking price of $23,500,000 which was later reduced to $21,500,000. According to property records, the vaguely Hampton-esque style house measures 10,769 square feet and includes 5 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms and a large striped motor court. After some time languishing on the market, the Medavoy's de-listed their house and, presumably, decided to stay in Beverly Park a bit longer.

George Santo Pietro, otherwise known as Vanna White's ex-huzband and baby daddy, built an approximately 30,000 square foot beast next door too his own over-sized mansion which he listed in August of 2007 with a teeth chattering asking price of $50,000,000. In the Spring of 2008, Mister Santo Pietro rather wisely leased the 9 bedroom and 15 bathroom spread to the talented and wildly eccentric musician Prince. Mister Santo Pietro is rumored and reported to have persuaded Prince to fork over the princely sum of $200,000 per month, a number that very well could be true but sounds a bit exaggerated to Your Mama. As far as we know, Prince still struts his purple stuff up and down the long hallways of the house.

And then of course, there's Villa Firenze, the gigantic multi-parcel spread owned by Steven Udvar-Hazy that we keep hearing (but can not confirm) is quietly being shopped around a price so high no one will even whisper it in Your Mama's big ear. Among other money making undertakings, Mister Udvar-Hazy made a few billion smackers leasing jets and according to property records on file with the County of Los Angeles, he chose to spend many tens of millions building a massive monument to his wealth which measures in at a whopping 28,660 square feet with 8 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms. Keep in mind those figures do not include the 2,948 square foot guest house (which records show has 2 bedrooms and 3 terlits) or any of the other out buildings and pavilions that dot the 10+ acre estate.

It would not surprise Your Mama or the Dr. Cooter to learn that there are even more rich (or formerly rich) folks quietly shopping their Beverly Park money pits around to that very short list of folks who still have the finances and desire to live like robber barons, rock stars and royalty.

Kudos Mama; If you have your course work done, todays effort is worthy of a thesis for your PhD in real estate porn. The gathering together of all of these ridiculously large and expensive "homes" really drives home the absurdity of this kind of "living large". What will all of these sellers do without the Russian gourmands? It will be interesting to see when and for how much one of these properties sells for.

Sweey Baby Jesus! This is mighty tasty stuff! Me and my sister are running down to the Kwik-Mart right now for a twelve pack and a carton of Newports so we can peruse Mama's BIG HOT MESS this evening! What a Friday night fiesta! Love ya Mama.........Hope you and Dr. C have a fab weekend. Bye Bye and God Bless!

A+ write up Mama, a few of the ones you mentioned at the end can still be found on the realtors websites, just not the MLS ...

It is the most disturbingly atrocious part of LA ... LA has so many amazing homes in the lower foothills & if security is that important just have 24/7 security on your property like many people do in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills etc ...

The architecture is just so hideous, what moron wants to live in a faux Richard Landry! He's LA's worst architect & he's responsible for that ugly ass modern you featured above ... He [or his practice] should have taken some tips from Gwathmey Siegel, Meier, Pawson etc.. on how to do modern correctly!

re Princess Lucianai Paluzzi-- I guess she really made bundle off the Camay ads in the 70s-- but gracious she must be 125 years old now. As for Mr. Bisno-- so he's had a notice of default on the house. Don't you just hate it when your accountant forgets to pay the bills? Good help is so hard to find these days. Yes, I'm sure Mr. Bisno is richer than evah!

I believe there are less then 75 homes in all of Beverly Park (north and south). Anybody know for sure?

Whoever thinks there are "loads of homes in Beverly Park" is full of S***.

Sure you can have your own walls and gates in B.H., Bel-Air and Holmby, however the the gated communities have private streets, so the creeps can't sit outside your gates with cameras, or ring your doorbell at night etc.......

72 Beverly Park is 10,813 sq ft with 5 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. A new 5,000 sq ft guest house still puts the house at a far cry from the 20k sq ft being advertised at.

Granted, there are several viewing pavilions and pool / out buildings on the lot that could stack up quite a few bathrooms, but 18 damn bathrooms is a whole lot, and you're telling the guest house has 6 bedrooms.

Russ Weiner is either smoking crack, an idiot or a combination of the 2. His house is WAAAAAY over priced compared to other comps, modern may not be your thing but the 20k sq ft Zada house or the 15.8k sq ft Bisno house are much more appealling. And then jump up a few more million to $31.5 for 27k sq ft at 40 Beverly Park. Russ's asking price is pure fantasy.

the fucked up thing about the safe estate is that these arab cunts are greedy

I believe in 2001 they were asking 10MM for the whole lot

now they are asking 10MM for half the lot and even after that you have to deal with the city and neighbors, I can not land my bloody helicopter at 4am because the neighbors will complain ? not to mention that I have been told that only a small helicopter can land on that roof park for the night,

I also believe the city will tell me that I cannot own it because it was built without permits in the first place, they have also filed lawsuits against the place, so how can they sell it unless they have already been settled out of court

Anon 1:33 said: "The architecture is just so hideous, what moron wants to live in a faux Richard Landry!"

A big wet one from me to you; I loathe his lack of taste & odd sense of proportion.

But I must say I'm intrigued by the Zada house; must've been done by an associate. Some awkward volumetric collisions there, but it's well-sited on a decent parcel and there are far worse post moderns out there. But none dwell in the same class as those you mentioned, i.e. Gwathmey Siegel, Meier, et al.

An aerial tour of the enclave leads me to believe that there should be an overarching, white wrought iron gate at the entrances with Vulgarville in 4 ft. high Gothic script...

Astonishing.

It must be the highest density of overly costly, indecorous, uncouth "architecture" in the western hemisphere.

The Norm Zada house looks strikingly similar to Jackie Collins' swanky digs on North Beverly Drive...Jackie has a better pool and I think, overall, her house is nicer because the art deco aesthetic she demanded was executed quite faithfully. It doesn't hurt that Jackie designed the house herself.

Surprisingly, Beverly Park isn't really that expensive when you calculate price per square foot. I've been in a few homes and I love the neighborhood and the monstrous sized houses (as tacky as some believe it is)

The Centurty condominium building in Century City is more expensive than these BP homes, as is most luxury buildings in Manhattan.

I've been through the Lot 78 house when it was under construction, and there were some serious construction defects (like waterproofing on the decks installed backwards, to let water in instead of keeping it out).

Of course, this may have been fixed, but unless they ripped everything out I doubt they caught every problem.

For an interesting comparison to these behemoths, it is worth typing in the address to view this recently built house which, while impressive, would make a wonderful family home. I am sorry I don't know how to imbed but the address is: http://resources.knightfrank.com/GetResource.ashx?id=acec6ce4-36c2-42bd-86f5-cbd34f95a320&type=1 I know it is a long address but it takes you to the brochure with floorplans and photos.

Yes, there is one lot in Beverly Park on the open market for $11.9m. There is a second lot farther south in the neighborhood that is unbuilt but sold. All the other lots are built with the exception of a 3rd lot belonging to Villa Firenze that is landscaped but could be sold off to build a house at some point.

I love how all of the attitudes towards this place are so terrifically condescending. I know damn well that if I had the ability, I would want to live here and so would all of you. Sure, they may be filthy rich, but there is no reason to attack them for that.

Be it manifestations of jealousy or just pure humbleness (although Im sure over 51% of it is the former) I really see no need to attack these people until they do something to us first. Until that happens, I congratulate them on making it into the top .001% of people in the world who have the ability to live where they do.

All the money in the world would not make me want to live in Beverly Park. I'm glad it's there for people who do want to live like that, but it's just not my thing.

So just because YOU might like to live in Beverly Park, don't assume the rest of us who wish we were rich would too.

There are plenty of people with the kind of money all those people in Beverly Park have who choose to live far more modestly. Hell, a 7,000 sq. ft. spread on an acre in Bel Air is more modest by comparison to a house in Beverly Park, right?

3:22/3:32 WHO is 'attacking' and being 'condescending'? YOURS is the opinion which is worth so much more than the rest here apparently. Feeling smugly superior now that you've lectured and told everyone off? Pffft.

You were so smart to rent Joe cause Heaven ain't sellin' these days. Oops, I apologize if telling the truth amounts to ravenous jealousy when I dare utter anything less than glowing positives about Beverly Park (nobly bowing my head in reverence).

You couldn't pay me to live in Beverly Park, and it has nothing to do with jealousy or condescension.It's so security laden with gates behind gates and armed guards, etc. that not even the residents walk the streets. It's equivalent to a rich man's maximum security prison. I'm all for common sense security, but something is wrong with this picture for anyone who values living normally. And for the most part, the homes are nouveau riche and tasteless trying to pretend they're not.

The picture of the Zada house is prior to the new additional of the 5k sq ft guest house.

I think the house is quite striking actually... would love to see more of the interior. And compared to other modern houses it actually seems to be quite a bit of house for the money. 20,000 sq ft on 7 acres in the most exclusive gated community on the plant for $24,500,000......

I do fervently hope that the ongoing "downturn" will finish off many of these people and put them down in Compton or some place like that. I'd love to see these temples to greed emptied out and left to rot or occupied by a bunch of homeless people who break through the security, etc. Schadenfreude, you know.

The USA needs a "wealth tax" on people's assets, not income. You know, something like 30% a year on all assets over 5 million. That would whittle down these bloated gluttons real fast. And the nation would be the better for it.

reply to StPaulSnowman comment FAWSLEY LITTLE HALL I like the whole castle look and feel but I dont like how they did the floor plan... at least I dont like how they made it where you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the dining room ( yes when entertaining people end up in the kitchen but not when you have a chef) Also I am not sure where the house was built but i need an ATTACHED garage for what looks like a cold climate regardless if i have a driver or not.

d......thanks for embedding the link. Based on the floorplan, you are exactly right about access to the dining room and library. I can't believe this would actually be the case in a house of this quality........I'll have to poke the agent on this one.....just for fun. You have to admit it wouldn't be so bad to walk through the garden with your Pimm's to get to dinner. I personally don't like attached garages, even though I live in the tundra. Because of their door requirements, they always end up looking stuck on, or stuck under a house. The garage doors can be tarted up but you always know what they are. I posted the comment mostly to provide a contrast to the overwrought opulence of the Beverly Park houses.

I don't get why you are al so jealous and bitchy about peoples choices. Realistically no one needs a mega-manse, but there are TONS of houses throughout the Hollywood Hills, Bev. Hills, Bel Air, Pac. Pallisades, Brentwood, etc taht are just as big and garish but get less harsh oppinions.

Mama, In contrast to Beverly Park sell off... there seems to be a "sell off" in another one of the uber-priced posh gated communities. Take a look at how many homes in Brentwood Country Estates are presently on the market.

mama.... looks like you clicked when you shoulda clacked a couple of times... norm zada's house is listed at $24,500,000 not $24,800,000 and is 20,000 sq ft INCLUDING the 5,000 sq ft guest house not plus the guest house.

oh good grief. where do you get your information? where did you see that 98% of the world's billionaires are gone?

I'll agree that many have lost massive amounts of money and that any number of folks who recently had a billion dollars now have less than a billion (and maybe even way less), but I'd like you to cite your references for 98% of the world's billionaires having evaporated.

Or are you going to say that they will EVENTUALLY evaporate when all the financial messes are known? I bet that's what you'll say even thought that is NOT what you said before. You'll squirm out of it, or you call me some sort of names. But what you will not do is be able to show how your arrive at these crazy statistic you keep citing.

The Times, Wall Street Journal, Post — everyone has some kind of story about the infighting, because basically Americans love to watch the rich lose all their money, and then claw at yell viciously at one another, just like people in trailer parks and shacks, and everywhere else really. And also because, oh yeah, crazy Sumner Redstone controls Viacom and CBS.

The story is, Redstone blew his money on crazy investments like Midway Games, which just absolutely hemorrhages money making videogames you've mostly never heard of, plus Mortal Kombat. He also last year donated $105 million to three hospitals, suddenly, after giving no charity, to anyone, ever. And now he has to pay for it all, by selling stocks, because his lenders are literally forcing him to.

Redstone is a stubborn old bastard bastard and refused to sell any Viacom or CBS shares to meet these obligations. Except then eventually he got desperate and was all, "OK, maybe I'll sell a little CBS, fine."

Redstone is still desperate. He can't raise enough money just selling a little CBS stock. So he's going to sell off huge chunks of the company his daughter Shari runs, a movie theater chain, which is basically innocent in this whole mess. Shari, obviously, it totally pissed, and voted against the plan in a meeting of a board committee, but lost.

So now Sumner Redstone might vote his daughter off the board, according to the Times, and presumably out of her job running the movie theater chain, because his lenders are nervous having the CEO of the movie theater chain OPPOSED to the plan to sell off chunks of said movie theater chain. And also if he dies, she becomes chairman of Viacom and CBS, which would make the lenders even more nervous.

In the meantime, Redstone doesn't have to pay $800 million due today, because his lenders are sufficiently impressed with his plan to screw over his own daughter that they're extending his deadline indefinitely while negotiations continue. Or so says the Post.

It's a beautiful Christmas fairytale, really, staged for the whole world in newspaper and tabloid columns.Read More: Sumner Redstone, Viacom, CBS, National Amusements, the rich

keep in mind that there were over 10,000 billionaires in the world, maybe even more and the ones that were worth a billion got up to 6 billion last year

you really were not a player unless you had 50MM in net worth

at that time the dow was close to 15,000 now the dow is in the 6000 area, , bank stocks were 200 a share, now they are 3 a share, some are even below a dollar, GM was 50 a share, now it is ready to declare bankruptcy

what a difference a year makes

if the fortress was listed at 14MM last year and sold for 8MM I am sure that is a good indication of how much these estates will sell for, that is if they even sell at all

it is like the universe, god whatever is now punishing the greedy for gluttony

the unfortunate thing is that the middle class, upper class are caught up in this turmoil

I mean 700 graduates, engineers what have you applying for a janitors job ?

THEY are larger-than-life figures at home and abroad, men who saw themselves as the Carnegies or Rockefellers of Russia. They are known as oligarchs, and they may soon be thrown into the dustbin of history by the economic crisis.

Brash, young and wealthy, those insiders of post-Soviet business who escaped nationalization — to say nothing of exile or prison — under Vladimir V. Putin went on to make ever greater fortunes in the commodity boom of recent years. But few businessmen anywhere have fallen as hard or as fast in recent months.

Many of Russia’s richest men were highly leveraged going into the financial crisis and were unable to roll over loans from Western banks. The Kremlin bailed them out with short-term credits last year, not wanting the assets to fall into foreign hands. Those state loans will be coming due by the end of the year, on top of additional foreign loans.

The mountain of debt is so huge — the Central Bank calculates that corporations and banks in Russia must repay $128 billion this year alone — that many oligarchs will be unable to repay the loans, bankers say. Only a fraction of this debt, about $7 billion, is corporate bonds. The rest is bank loans to companies predominantly owned by the oligarchs or the state.

“Those who are left will be swept away in the crisis,” said Olga V. Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist who studies the Russian elite at the national Academy of Sciences. “The Kremlin has all the levers. If they want to help, they will help. If they do not want to help, they will say, ‘We are liberalizing now; market relations will determine which of you survive.’ ”

Some oligarchs are so desperate that a group of metal executives made a pilgrimage to the Kremlin in January to make what once would have been an unthinkable proposal. Meeting with President Dmitri A. Medvedev, they proposed merging their assets, which include some of Russia’s largest mines and factories, into a state-controlled conglomerate. In exchange, the government would refinance billions in Western bank debt.

In other words, they were voluntarily proposing to reverse the contentious loans-for-shares privatizations that birthed the oligarchs in the mid-1990s.

“They’ve all been racing to see who can be the first to do a deal with the government,” said Rob Edwards, a metals analyst at Renaissance Capital in Moscow. Access to Russia’s hard currency reserves, he said, is the oligarchs’ “get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Unfortunately for many oligarchs, and the Western banks who lent them money, that card may no longer be drawn. In a paradoxical twist, the government that had supported nationalization in oil and other industries is now strapped for funds to support the ruble and prop up the budget, and seems wary of investing in troubled industries.

Once-invincible oligarchs now look extremely vulnerable. With or without state aid, the government is likely to gain more control of their operations. If they get no help, many could go into bankruptcy, with nationalization of one form or another likely to follow. And any new bailout would probably mean larger equity stakes for the government.

ALREADY, bankers say, the crisis has touched a lifestyle of megayachts, private jets and spacious residences in Britain and France.

“Today’s crisis is merciless for raw-materials producers,” Alisher B. Usmanov, an iron and steel tycoon, and one of those at the Kremlin meeting, said in an interview. “It will take back everything we accumulated yesterday.”

In the initial collapse of the Russian stock market from May to October last year, Bloomberg News has calculated, the richest 25 people on the Forbes magazine list for Russia lost a collective $230 billion. Some of those unable to win state bailouts put up planes, yachts and mansions on the Côte d’Azur as collateral for loans, said Oleg V. Vyugin, the director of MDM Bank.

Mr. Vyugin’s bank has many tycoons as customers; he declined to discuss any specific properties he has claimed lately, but he says he meets often with the rich to sign such deals. “Industrial assets are worth so little now,” he explained with a shrug.

But more than the garish sparkle of post-Soviet wealth is at stake. As the Kremlin meeting makes clear, the future ownership of a pivotal global mining and metals industry, needed to restore supplies in any economic recovery, is on the line.

In addition to Mr. Usmanov, other oligarchs at the meeting were Oleg V. Deripaska, a nuclear physicist turned post-Soviet corporate raider; Mikhail D. Prokhorov, a metals investor known as the bachelor billionaire; Vladimir O. Potanin, an industrialist and early beneficiary of privatization; and Viktor F. Vekselberg, an oil magnate who recently donated a $100 million collection of Fabergé eggs (some of which he bought from the family of Malcolm Forbes) to a Russian museum.

Together, they own the world’s largest aluminum and nickel producers. At first blush, the oligarchs’ proposal looks similar to what governments worldwide are considering: taking stakes in collapsing companies. But Russia is different. Even before the crisis, the government had been consolidating industry in state hands; a takeover here in the midst of crisis would look less like a measured policy response and more like yet another pretext for an ever-expanding role for the government in business.

Anon 1:55. That was very interesting. Thanks for taking the time to write it. We need to be more aware of how the rest of the world is shaking down. Your boys should have been less greedy and ostentatious in their purchases.

they would want to put it back into their own companies, make payments to the banks to stay out of prison before they would be stupid enough to buy another estate

my prediction for this market ?

that safron 125MM estate on carolwood will sell for 12.5 and after that the rest will follow, or best case the 125MM estate will be taken off of the market and it will be back up in 40 years or so with an asking price of 200MM lol

I heard she was offered 70MM when it first came on the market by a russian now former billionaire, it was a cash deal and she turned it down, I am sure she wished she took the deal,

No one is going to argue that the world is in major financial crisis, that tons of rich lots a lot if not most of their money. But to continue to run around spewing the comments about EVERY rich person's finances is just pure ignorance.

There are still a lot, and i do mean A LOT of rich, rich people... even if they lost a big portion of their wealth... which not ever rich person was leveraged beyond believe like you all like to imagine.

There is too much money via the entertainment industry in LA to ever see as ridiculously drastic of reduction like Carolwood to $12.5mm. You're all just psychotic if you truly believe that.

6:44, I think Joe's rental comments were toungue-in-cheek, not to be taken literally, humoring intended to make a point without being confrontational, i.e. "Ok, Beverly Park is Heaven on Earth - whatever you say."

Does anyone remember Aunt Mary? And her witty posts that added much to the conversation? I'm sure we can all come up with various people who used to contribute and help make Mama's blog a wonderous place to visit. Why don't they come around anymore? Could it be they got tired of being lost in barrage of one person's (Joe) unrelated posts?

Somewhere in his rants he claims Google is deleting blogs. Maybe it's time. If Mama HAD to move the blog to another service, it could be better for all the children.

CPS, I hear you! Aunt Mary is, to the best of my knowledge, alive and well. I also remember the halcyon days of yore. We all came and played and licked the spoon when Mama wasn't threatening us with it.

As for Beverly Park, I wouldn't live there on a bet. Not my kind of place, but I will say that real estate in CA is always a good long term investment, especially on the west-side of Los Angeles.

15k a month, around 200k a year30 years around 6MM, I do not have to worry about state taxes, maintenence, utilities which is 100k a month here, any other expenses

I can live a care free life without worry, what can I say, it is the real way to live

vs

15k a month on a 2.5MM pad that is going down to 200k in a matter of a few years, I will get a heart attack or worse from that news, on top of that I have to maintain the place every month, which would be around 5k,

nope I think renting is far better

just sayin

and cnn seems to agree with me as well now

if you must know what I do ?

I make computer programs, and so while I am waiting for my programs to compile I surf around,

I will leave it at that

btw did you hear about detroit ? I think there is a gold rush going on over there.

March 7, 2009 3:42 PM: Anonymous said...3:22/3:32 WHO is 'attacking' and being 'condescending'? YOURS is the opinion which is worth so much more than the rest here apparently. Feeling smugly superior now that you've lectured and told everyone off? Pffft.

Pardon the confusion. Allow me to clarify:

March 6, 2009 5:56 PM: Weiner's got so much money, he's just a fickle rich fuck. He doesn't need to sell any of the properties and he'd still be fine.

March 7, 2009 10:13 PM: I do fervently hope that the ongoing "downturn" will finish off many of these people and put them down in Compton or some place like that. I'd love to see these temples to greed emptied out and left to rot or occupied by a bunch of homeless people who break through the security, etc. Schadenfreude, you know.

March 7, 2009 10:22 PM: ...That would whittle down these bloated gluttons real fast. And the nation would be the better for it.

Shall I go on? The rants that I have cited above are most certainly not warm and fuzzy are they? Are they critical observations based on empirical fact? No, they are CONDESCENDING comments made towards people who society deems (in terms of both wealth and opulence) BETTER than the writers of those words.

And when someone (March 6, 2009 11:49 PM) tried to step in to step in and cite some other areas where prices were similar, he/she was again attacked with the comment:

March 7, 2009 12:41 AM:"look"

this is the wrong site for your crap

try another one you fucking troll

What the hell is wrong with you people? You want to criticize the architecture, fine, go for it! You want to criticize the opulence, who cares! But the fact that you make inferences about these people reveals not only your brutish indecency but your jealousy and rage about the fact that they EVEN HAVE THE OPTION of living the way they do.

Instead, you should spend a minute or two trying to learn from their success so instead of scouring the net for posh real estate blogs for the sake of blowing off some steam. Then you may actually be able to purchase one of the houses you so vehemently research.

Im not defending the people of Beverly Park. All I am saying is that you show your cards more than you think in the heated prose you spew onto these blogs. Have some fucking respect for once and restrain your hatred for those who have more than you. Grow up.

Joe can't compose a proper sentence. How the hell could he write code? Easy - He doesn't. He's a sad little individual probably living on welfare and pretending to be someone he will never even have the opportunity to meet unless he was standing in front of them with his hand out in front of a club.

4:42, it seems to me that you're every bit as guilty, in your own way, of what you criticize about others. I would much rather read criticism about people who don't participate here than your tirades directed at those who do. Your hero worship of the rich is showing, and your hatred of those who don't share your views is immature. Grow up yourself and go elsewhere if you don't like it, thanks.

One side effect of the implosion of Dubai's economy which my colleague Deidre Woollard reported on last month is the plummeting value of trophy properties owned by certain superstars. Celebs including David and Victoria Beckham (above), Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and Michael Jackson are losing £80,000 or over $100,000 a week as the luxury real estate they purchased in the over-inflated Emirate plunges in value, the London Daily Mirror reports. Posh properties that were worth £3.2 million (or about $4.4 million) in October now on the market for £1.6 million (or about $2.2 million), i.e. only half as much.

"The Dubai market has fallen off a cliff," Jack Whisker of luxury agents Dream Property Dubai tells the paper. "The credit crunch hit us suddenly because all the foreign investors lost confidence. How far is beverly park away from this potential problem ?

It has hit the higher-value properties the hardest." In January Deidre reported that the Beckhams, who have a luxury villa on the Palm Jumeirah complex, were considering purchasing a second property in the Burj Dubai tower, so they could be doubly exposed. Brad and Angelina reportedly own one of the artificial islands in the out-there development known as The World.

First of, Dubai is a secondary market. The millionaires and billionaires are going to give up ad stop purchasing secondary properties while still living in lush lavish pads, such as Beverly Park. I agree that in general the market will continue to come down, and that some high end areas such as Beverly Park and these asking prices haven't hit reality yet, but the day when any of these homes go under $10mm will NEVER happen.

OK so i have a question about Beverly park and I hope someone can answer for me. ..If you live in Beverly Park, with all its security does that mean you can not have friends over? What if you want to have a party? Im sure, no matter how much money I have I will always want my people to come visit me at will and throw parties. Do these people not have parties? Do the guests have to register at the gates as offical guests with arrival and departure times and record their license plate number? Or can they just plane not come in and visit? Yes i understand that these people have other homes that there friends can come too, but what if you want your friends to visit you in your beverly park house? What if you want a party at your beverly park house?

It's called a guest list. You provide the gate with a list of people that you have invited, they check the list when your guests arrive. Same applies in high end condos and co-ops with 24 hour security or even country club communities in suburbia.